Two reviews of Ian Pindar's Constellations

The poems are most effective when precise images build into nuanced observations, as when the speaker notes "the seductive endurance of the particular" toward the end of "21." When the entire poem operates as an abstract meditation, sometimes the result appears a little hackneyed, as when "62" begins "Poetry must go where prose cannot follow." At other times the desire to declare means an otherwise intriguing poem is undermined by a trite conclusion, as when "75" closes with "A new beginning, a fresh start, morning" and "77" ends "If my children are happy I am happy."

From there the review resumes as it's printed. I post this here because I don't want any reputation I may have as a discerning reader of poetry to be marred by what seems a wholly positive review of a not wholly strong collection. Obviously it has a number of good qualities, as the review in The Guardian notes, but the weaknesses need to be noted also.

1 comment:

I’m sure the cheque from The Guardian was very nice but, like you, I would be deeply troubled if an editor came along and did something like that. I keep waiting on Canongate or Alma saying they’ll stop sending me books because of my honesty but so far I seem to be getting away with it. Okay I may not have The Guardian’s readership but that also means that the only editor I have to please is my wife (who really does edit my posts by the way.)

About Me

I am an American poet resident in England since 2001. Previously I lived in Normal, Illinois (till age 19) and southern California (from age 19 to 32). *
My first collection, The Tethers (Seren, 2009), won the London New Poetry Award, and in March 2010 the anthology I edited, Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets, was published by Shearsman Books. My second collection, Divining for Starters, came out with Shearsman in February 2011, while my third, Imagined Sons (Seren, 2014) was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry from The Poetry Society. Individual poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Boston Review, The New Republic, The New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement and many other journals.
*
I also publish reviews, most recently in The Guardian, Poetry London and The Warwick Review, and short fiction, with appearances in New Welsh Review, Oblong and Flash.
*
I am a senior lecturer in creative writing at Bath Spa University, where I have taught since 2004.